Many service providers have access to location information of many mobile devices. The service providers are in communication with mobile devices that are equipped with a geo-location system, such as a Global Positioning System (GPS), configured to determine the location of the associated mobile device, and these mobile devices can share their location information with the service providers. The location information can be useful for service providers because the service providers can adapt the service based on the location of the mobile devices. For example, mobile application that recommends restaurants can re-rank a list of recommended restaurants based on the determined location of the mobile device running that application.
While the use of location information has increased significantly in recent years, the use of location information is still quite limited. The location information is often deemed a time-independent measurement. Therefore, although service providers adapt their services based on the location of the mobile device at a particular time instance, the service providers largely ignore the path over which the mobile device has traveled over a period of time. Thus, the service providers largely ignore the rich contextual information embedded in the location information. There is a need to provide efficient mechanisms for extracting rich contextual information embedded in the location information.